


Atoms & Stars

by infernis



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: (but really only hallucinations), F/M, M/M, Modern AU, Mountaineering, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-04-16
Packaged: 2018-06-02 16:08:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6572935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infernis/pseuds/infernis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He looked at Rene and found that she was looking at him. There was something strange in her eyes, something he couldn’t quite place. Had she heard it too?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Atoms & Stars

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote most of this months ago and forgot about it and discovered it like 2 hours ago. This is also the first fic I'm publishing that I mean not to delete a day later.
> 
> Important things to know: K2 is the second highest mountain in the world (wow). It's also the second deadliest eight-thousander (26,5% death rate). There are 4 Camps (excluding Base Camp) on the ascent. 
> 
> \+ symptoms of high altitude sickness: shortness of breath, extreme fatigue, headaches, insomnia, hallucinations; snow blindness is also mentioned. Nothing graphic, but still read with caution.
> 
> Please tell me what you think!

“What was Renee to you?”

Gene took a second to contemplate the question. He opened his mouth and closed it.

“She was half of my soul.”  
  


...  
  


Clear skies, glistening snow, the softness of her gaze on the back of his head – yet the landscape was unforgiving.

The divine beast loomed above all else. K2 – just the bare bones of a name, all rock and ice and storm and abyss. It made no attempt to sound human. It was atoms and stars. It had the nakedness of the world before the first man – or of the cindered planet after the last.  
  


...  
  


They went steady, took their time, rested well. The sun warmed their backs as they made their way higher and higher.

At Camp 2 they switched to supplement oxygen. The climb was harder than Gene cared to admit.  
  


...  
  


They had set up their tent at Camp 4 just as small white clouds moved to shadow the clear blue skies. The forecast for the following day was all sunshine and soft winds. There had been storm warnings, but none for the next couple of days. Gene sat calmly in the tent as he melted snow and turned it into drinking water.

They were all alone there. They knew Speirs and Lipton and their team had summited that day, they had passed them on their down somewhere below Camp 4. Gene knew there was a team set to go up the following day. They were probably at Camp 3, where Gene and Rene were resting the day before.

Always when they climbed they ended up far from the crowd. Gene didn’t purposely intend it so.

“There’s nothing like a sunset at 7600 meters,” Rene said as she looked out over the horizon. In the fading light she looked like a dream.

They would push for the summit the following day.  
  


...  
  


They rose early, climbed forever upward as the night turned into dusk. The sunrise met them at the base of the bottleneck.

Everything went by plan right until it didn’t.  
  


...  
  


Dark clouds gathered above their heads as they made their way higher. Gene felt a nagging voice in his head, heard a whisper carried by the wind.

“Leave,” it said. “Go.”  

And just as quickly as it had come the voice was gone. He looked at Rene and found that she was looking at him. There was something strange in her eyes, something he couldn’t quite place. Had she heard it too?  
  


...  
  


He had tried this climb before. He had tried and the mountain had beaten him.

Those were the days when he hadn’t yet met Rene. I was his third climb of an eight-thousander and he was confident of himself and his team and his skill and still their leader turned them back. Winters was as admirable as he was experienced. He was a man Gene trusted with his life. He’d said it was too dangerous and everyone had listened and packed their tents and made their way back from Camp 4 to Base Camp and then all the way back home.

Disappointment wasn’t the right word for what he had felt. He was unhappy, very unhappy – that was the truth. He had been very close and for various reasons did not get there, even when he had a real chance. From an outside perspective the result was the same: he could, but he did not.  
  


...  
  


The wind picked up and the sky turned black so quickly Gene wondered whether this was some dark magic ruling this forgotten, jagged place. Had they overstayed their welcome? Did the mountain have a soul?  
  


...  
  


The weather had slowed Rene and Gene. They summited late in the afternoon. Making it down would be a challenge. The sun was almost entirely hidden from view by the thick wall of clouds but still Gene knew they had an hour of daylight left. They could make it. They would have to climb in dark, but there was no other way. Their oxygen wasn’t meant to last them another day.

Suddenly the ground shook beneath their feet and something big rumbled below them. Gene’s heart was racing. An avalanche tumbled down below them. Gene and Rene gaped at what they were seeing. This was the way they had come – if they had come later, even if they had turned back and gave up on the summit it would have gained on them faster than they could move to take cover.  
  


...  
  


They pushed down cautiously, slowly. They were only 15 minutes out when another smaller avalanche rolled down on their far left. With a growing sense of fear Gene realized that their secured line had been swept away. They had no ropes to guide them, nothing to hold on to but each other. He looked at Rene and found that she was looking at him.

Understanding and agreement came easily between him and Rene. She didn’t have to say anything for him to know what she wanted. He had been thinking the same, calculating the risk. The bottleneck was dangerous in the daylight and now even more so in the dark with nothing to guide them. They would be going to certain death. Staying there through the night was their best shot.

They huddled close together in their bivouac. Neither of them fell asleep.  
  


...  
  


How the difference of a single day can so drastically change the fate of some.  
  
A man in a thick red jacked rushed into the communications tent at Base Camp. His team was set to leave base camp for a push to the summit the following day.

“Radio them – radio whoever’s still up there. We’ve got an oxygen supply set up bellow the bottleneck. They can take it. Take all of it.”  
  


...  
  


Every time he turned back to look at her the snow got thicker and thicker until he could hardly make out the shape of her body. He took a step and then another, he turned his head and he could see her no more.

He doubled back, followed the rope tied to each of them. He had to stop to catch his breath, to calm himself down.

He found her leaning on the cliff face.

“I am so tired Eugene,” she said. The wind carried her voice away and to Gene it seemed like only a whisper. He went to check her oxygen level. “I’m all out. I’m sorry, I didn’t say. We both know –“

“No,” the force of his voice surprised him.

“There is no other way-”

“No,” he said again, more insistent.

“Leave me.”

Gene’s radio screeched. He grabbed it with stiff fingers.  
  


...  
  


Fran handed Ron the radio with shaking hands. A climber had answered, a man she knew well, who had helped he husband after his fall. His voice seemed clear and determined, but weary. He was still so far up with the storm raving above his head.

“Listen to me. Go get the supply. You’re not far. We’re coming up – Nixon and I – and we’ll meet you on the way. Speirs and Lipton and Randleman are on their way from Camp 3. You two better hold on until we get there.”  
  


...  
  


Rene moved her hand to lay it on top of Gene’s as he unclipped the rope which bound them together.

“Rene, listen to me, I will be back. It will only be a little while.” She nodded her head and leaned it back against the cold hard rock. Through her blurry vision she tried to focus on his retreating back. When he was gone she dreamt about the sun breaking through the angry sky above her and warming her cold, cold bones.

...

He took a step and then another. He looked back and could not see her anymore. Still he pushed on.

Gene’s head felt heavy on his shoulders, a drowsiness had overtaken him. The corners of his vision were turning black. He didn’t have to check his oxygen level to know he was out.

Gene heard a tremendous rumble somewhere above him. The mountain groaned far above and a terrible white monster tumbled down and gained more and more speed as it fell. He did not know if what he was seeing was real or a hallucination.

The monster rumbled on and disappeared somewhere far below him. It didn’t throw a glance at him as it thundered down.

He kept going lower and lower on the mountain face. He stumbled with each step.  
  


...  
  


The rescue party pushed forward though the late hours of the morning. The storm was starting to clear above their heads.  
  


...  
  


With trembling hands Eugene searched the place Fran had described. Beneath a thin layer of snow he felt something hard and smooth. Two oxygen bottles – one full and one halfway. His heart leaped at the sight.  
  


...  
  


He gathered all of his strength and set back from the way he had come. The climb seemed less strenuous than the descent, his head was clearer but still he found himself confused.

He had been moving as fast as he could going down, he hadn’t been paying attention to his surroundings – but he was sure he was not lost. He’d memorized the way. He’d studied the maps for months. And still the landscape he’d passed on his way seemed changed. Rocks he’d climbed over had tumbled far below and others now took their place. He couldn’t find a single trace of his footprints of a piece of rope or anything at all. The mountain seemed rearranged, swiped clean of all things human, as few as they had been to begin with.

Gene’s heart beat quickened and all of a sudden he was afraid. The great rumble, the white monster – he had seen an avalanche before, he knew what it felt like.

He forced himself to think of where he left Rene. He set off in the direction his heart was pulling him and he was almost sure he’d lost his way irrevocably and that not only that he wouldn’t find Rene, but that he’d wandered off far away and was about to stumble off a cliff – and just then he noticed something blue. Peeking out from below a mess of white snow and black rock he saw something unmistakably human and stained a terrible red.   
  


...  
  


Gene stood there paralyzed. He was transfixed - he couldn't move an inch, could barely breathe. 

Suddenly he heard her voice in the back of his head.

“Leave.”

He took a step and then another. He looked back and could not see her anymore. He pushed on even though his heart was breaking.

“There you go.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm kind of considering writing an Epilogue so if that's something you'd like to read please let me know.
> 
> Also I'm on tumblr @mgnto so you can holler at me there.


End file.
